Right now, baseball news is at the forefront due to the MLB Winter Meetings ongoing in San Diego. Now literally, baseball’s are the talk of the morning on Wednesday.
For instance, Jeff Passan releases a tweet that links to a story on ESPN about the rising home run rates in 2019. Furthermore there were 6,776 home runs during the regular season, which is nearly 11% higher than the previous record set in 2017. However the baseball’s used in the postseason saw a drop in home runs hit.
News: MLB released its study looking into whether the baseballs were juiced in 2019, and the professors running it believe a record number of HR were hit due in part to inconsistent seams on the ball — and perhaps players embracing launch angle. Story: https://t.co/EOmfwNienL
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2019
In detail, this study is 27 pages long and was done by a committee of professors hired by baseball to conduct the study on the home run rise.
At the conclusion of the study, the professors offered different ways to keep offense down in baseball. Some of these ways were to employ humidors in all 30 MLB stadiums and the amount of mud being rubbed on the balls reducing drag in-game.
Notably, this is the second report baseball has conducted in the past two years. The first was after a similar home run increase between the 2015 and 2017 seasons.
Still – going by a direct quote pulled out of the report – a phenomenon exists.
“While we have learned much from our studies as well as those of other investigators,” the report said, “there is much that is not yet understood.”
So there you have it. There is much conjecture, and very little answers as to why the baseball is flying out of parks. For one, I don’t mind it. But I know not all fans feel this way about offense being good for the game. Things like this have a way of correcting themselves over time to begin with. Players and organizations will adjust.
